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Highly Ordered Arrays of Particle‐in‐Bowl Plasmonic Nanostructures for Surface‐Enhanced Raman Scattering
Author(s) -
Li Xianglin,
Zhang Yongzhe,
Shen Ze Xiang,
Fan Hong Jin
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
small
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.785
H-Index - 236
eISSN - 1613-6829
pISSN - 1613-6810
DOI - 10.1002/smll.201200576
Subject(s) - materials science , nanostructure , raman scattering , dielectric , particle (ecology) , plasmon , nanotechnology , scattering , layer (electronics) , nanoscopic scale , fabrication , polystyrene , raman spectroscopy , atomic layer deposition , particle size , optoelectronics , optics , composite material , chemical engineering , medicine , oceanography , physics , alternative medicine , pathology , geology , polymer , engineering
Abstract A highly ordered particle‐in‐bowl (PIB) nanostructure array is designed and fabricated to achieve large field enhancement for the surface‐enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) application. This new type of PIB structure is composed of an Ag particle located at the bottom of an Au bowl, and the two are separated by a precisely controlled nanoscale dielectric layer. The fabrication of the PIB structure is based on the self‐assembly of polystyrene spheres and atomic layer deposition (ALD), which allows good control of the metal particle size and gap distance, as well as large‐scale ordering. Numerical simulation reveals a high enhancement of the local field at the nanogaps. The SERS performance of the PIB arrays, and the effects of the Ag particle size and the ALD dielectric layer thickness are characterized, results of which are in reasonable agreement with simulation. With Rhodmaine 6G as the probe molecule, the spatially averaged SERS enhancement factor is on the order of 3.8 × 10 7 and the local field enhancement from simulation can be up to 10 8 .